Once Upon a Time...in Hollywood (Quentin Tarantino, 2019)

Tarantino could hardly be suspected of mellowing with age, as disproved by the cartoonishly ridiculous ultraviolence of The Hateful Eight on his last outing, but the slower pace here - almost stationary at times - and concomitant lack of real incident, until a brief spurt in the finale, lend support to the idea that he's perhaps starting to steer away from his trademark hyperactivity. Of course, it's saturated in pop culture references and each dialogue is still liberally peppered with fucks, but for once there isn't a single 'nigger' to accompany them. It's almost as if he was trying to avoid upsetting people.
This is rather critical if the film is to work as a love song to a Hollywood in the settled wake of the summer of love. It's LA in 1969 and Leonardo DiCaprio's TV Western actor is nursemaided through a crippling attack of self-doubt by Brad Pitt his resolute stunt double and friend. The friendship between the pair, even as they do little else but drive around the endless sun-drenched city streets, have banal conversations and get trashed, feels solid and real, and is a major driver of the film alongside the perpetual TV and radio barrage of Californian hippy pop, rock and grating period commercials, allowing us to sail through its many potential longueurs.
When the spectre of the Manson family, set to commit the notorious massacre in the house next door, raises it head, then so too does the inevitability that we will get a bloody Tarantino climax after all. But even that doesn't transpire quite the way you'd expect. It's a definite change of direction from the enfant terrible director, and for the most part a welcome one.

7/10